On Thursday 2 November, the Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 students gathered together to celebrate Music: Count Us In. The organisation exists to advocate for and celebrate music in Australian schools. Each year a song is written by students, for students. This year over 3,000 schools and 650,000 children Australia-wide tuned in at the same time to sing “Shine Together”. Here are some thoughts from our students:

“I really liked how it was about when you sing together. It shows how anyone can play music and anyone can become a star."Sienna 2DP

“I enjoyed singing Shine Together with lots of people. It was really fun. I love watching the videos about how they wrote the song. I love how they performed it live on TV."Will 2DP

“Music: Count Us In was really fun because coming together every week and practising to get the song right was fun. Just coming together and singing Shine Together was also a great experience."Ali 2DP

The students eagerly look forward to this visit each year and favourites “My Bonnie Lies Over The Ocean” and “You Are My Sunshine” brought smiles and tears to residents’ eyes.

The students can easily see what pleasure music brings to others and receive a great deal of joy by sharing their gifts with others. Thank you to Jude for his beautiful playing, all our lovely helpers and our gifted accompanist Mrs Heather Purdie.

Julie LuggMusic Teacher

Big Band 3 and Jazz Collective at Strawberry Fair

On Sunday, 5 November, Big Band 3 (led by Mat Noble)and The Jazz Collective (led by Stephanie Neale) performed a wonderful set of music as part of the entertainment at this year’s Strawberry Fair, held at Edwardstown Primary School. This is the 10th time Concordia has been involved in this enormous community event, and our students again performed wonderfully for the large crowd.

Mat NobleDirector of Music

Old Collegian Music News

Old Collegians Samuel Blanchard-Jackson ('16) and Amber Watkins ('16) were recently invited to perform at the concluding concert of the series “Lunchtimes at Elder”, at the University of Adelaide. The concert, titled Top Class, included 5 other Honours students. Samuel performed "Legende" by Henryk Wieniawski on violin, accompanied by Michael Ierace, while Amber performed "Lullaby" by Kevin Man on Marimba.